9 September 2013

When President Obama is given access to the media (Marketwatch)to build support for an airstrike on Syria the absence of dissenting voices is a sign that governments are deriving a major advantage when they try to influence public opinion. A balanced media landscape would give the same amount of airtime to opposing views. This does not mean we are for or against any contemplated airstrike.

6 September 2013

'Britain may regret its vote on Syria' reads the headline in a major media service (Bloomberg). This encapsulates all that is wrong with politics and the media. Established media is dominated by a concentration of powerful - and unaccountable - conglomerates. Someone rightly said that freedom of the media means that 200 rich people have the right to say what they want. So the slow demise of traditional media can only be a force for good as it makes it more difficult for the established parties and lobbies to dominate the political debate. The choice of words has already a strong bias. In the above example it implies some sort of communal will, but the (sad) reality is that 'Britain' - if you mean the totality of its citizens - had no say whatsoever in the decision to bomb or not to bomb Syria.